


Trapped

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Archangel Dean Winchester, Castiel Takes Care of Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Takes Care of Castiel, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Rescue, Sam Winchester Takes Care of Dean Winchester, Scared Dean Winchester, Trapped Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 10:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20905937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Cas is trapped in the box Dean built to hold him, and Michael.Dean is still in Michael’s control.Both problems have one solution, when Jack and Rowena manage to construct a replica of the box in Dean’s head, and Dean manages to trap Michael in it.But retain full access to his Grace.Will he be in time, though, to save Cas?





	Trapped

“Breathe,” Sam says, and “Dean, Dean, please, hold on, I’ve got you.”

And Dean does hold on, fingers digging in tight (later he’ll realise those whimpers of pain he heard weren’t his own, but Sam’s, as his new strength almost broke his brother’s hands when Dean grabbed for him), focusing on Sam’s voice, using him as an anchor against the flood of power raging inside of him.

But he’s Dean Winchester. He’s Dean Winchester and he’s carried the Mark of Cain and survived it. He’s broken in Hell and survived that too.

He can survive this.

He’s not just a Grace condom for that twisted fucker.

He’s Dean Winchester. And Sam Winchester is his brother, and Jack is their son, and Rowena is their witch and his angel is.…

He rears up out of Sam’s hold, Cas’s name a broken cry on his lips.

++

“If you push yourself too fast,” Rowena cautions, “you’re liable to kill yourself. And us.”

Dean ignores her, goes around when she tries to block his path.

“I want to get the tweety pie out of there as much as you do,” she keeps on. “But if we all die in the attempt it’ll do him no good, now, will it?”

“Dean,” Sam says, reaching for him, and getting shrugged off like a fly, “Dean, listen to her.”

No. He’s not going to listen to her, to them, because he knows where Cas is right now. Knows what Cas is going through right now, because Dean built that box.

He built it with the intention to spend the rest of eternity in there and that’s why he’s not wasting another second now he has the power to get Cas out.

That was the reason for this; that and finding a way to stop Michael for good.

It’s time to find out if it worked.

++

Jack looks as scared as Dean’s ever seen him and Dean gets it. 

His dad is trapped in a dark confined space, a void, cut off. 

For all they know, running on reduced Grace might mean the box is powerful enough to snuff Cas out, and Dean doesn’t know what he’ll do if that’s the case because this is on him.

He built that thing, and he’s the one who said yes to Michael and if he hadn’t done any of that then Cas would be beside him now and not…. 

He looks at the three of them, they can see his mind is set, and Sam nods, and Dean reaches inside him, to the power that’s his now (he can’t hear Michael, can’t sense him but he knows the bastard will be screaming) and tears at the lid.

It holds. 

It _holds_.

But he’s Dean Winchester and he’s faced down demons and archangels and God and his own dad for his family, for the world.

He is not going to back down now, so he doesn’t, and the box only holds...until it doesn’t, and then the lid crumples in his grip and he tosses it clear with a roar.

And then he reaches in and lifts out the still, quiet form inside, and holds Cas to him, so pale and so cold, and no. He won’t lose Cas now.

He reaches inside him again, and hears Rowena gasp, sees Sam look up behind him in astonishment, but all he cares about is the power that he pushes through into Cas, the summons to wherever Cas is and the answering of the seraph’s Grace to his own.

Cas jerks in his hold, flails, hands coming up to push against his prison.

Dean drops to his knees, cradles Cas to him with one arm, and grabs hold of the angel’s hands.

“I got you,” he says. “I got you out. You’re okay, you’re out. Cas.”

Cas is looking at him, into him, eyes wild and maybe not just because he’s still, in his head, interred alive.

“Dean?”

Dean laughs, a little harsh, a little self deprecating, because yeah, this is probably going to be another in his line of fuck ups, but like all of them it was necessary and he can’t regret it.

“Plus one,” he says, and then he sets Cas on his feet and Jack comes running to throw his arms around his dad.

++

He puts Cas under once they have him settled in bed. Cas needs time to heal and he’s not going to do that trying to check Dean over, ensure he’s okay, that everything Rowena and Jack put in place is holding.

Dean knows Cas has questions, but they can keep. 

In the meantime, he has the box to repair, because if its twin inside his head doesn’t hold, Dean knows they’ll need the real, physical, version again.

It’s there Sam finds him.

“You okay?”

Dean huffs. He lifts the lid, all two hundred pounds of solid engraved metal, by himself, and uses a combination of muscle and will to straighten it out.

“I’m an archangel, Sam. So, no.”

Sam shrugs, comes a little closer. “But still you.”

Yeah. Still him. But he was still him when he was empty inside and thinking of saying yes to Michael that first time around. Still him when he was bearing the Mark of Cain, and he killed those people and left Cas broken and bloodied and half dead on the ground for Sam to find and take care of.

Still him through all of that and yet a brutal thing.

He knows there was no choice in this, but there’s a part of him that fears what he’ll do if he loses control like before.

When he’s pumped full of a power he’s never known.

Sam’s hand on his shoulder stills him, turns him away from the box.

“We’re not gonna need it,” he says. “Because you’ve got this, Dean. I trust you. Cas, Jack, Rowena, they trust you.”

Dean doesn’t look at him until Sam gently tilts his chin so he has to. “You are never gonna hurt us.”

And then he’s pulling Dean into his arms, and Dean doesn’t fight, just breaks, all of it coming loose inside him, walls crumbling, and he’s in Sam’s hold so he can let it go.

And he does.

++

Cas wakes up a few hours later, and Dean senses it so he’s there when the seraph opens his eyes.

He holds still, lets Cas look at him, through him, to whichever part of him angels tuck their brilliancy away when they’re in a flesh and blood body.

And then Cas reaches for him.

Dean goes, doesn’t hesitate. If he wants them to have faith in him, trust, he needs to have it in himself, and Cas seems to have no issue there. He lies back and pulls Dean with him, and for the second time that day, Dean is being held by someone he loves.

“Are you alright?”

Dean shrugs, unwilling to say yes or no when the answer is part of both. Over the next few days, weeks, even months, he seesaws between them, but he’s never alone, always has his family there to bring him back to centre.

“We’ll take care of you, Dean,” Cas promises. “I’ll...I’ll teach you.”

Dean buries his face in Cas’s neck, inhaling Cas’s scent, unchanged and yet there’s more to it now.

He doesn’t want to think back to when he was going to teach Cas to be human, he had it planned, and instead all he taught Cas was, again, how to hurt.

It’d serve him right if Cas just left him to founder.

Cas tsks, and digs Dean out of his hiding place. “No. You didn’t have a choice then. And I would never, _never_, desert you, Dean. It’ll be alright.”

He lets Dean snuggle in again, and they spend the night like that, awake, and holding on, and Dean spends a little more of that faith to believe Cas is right, that it will be okay.

But they have each other, so right then...It’s a good enough place to start.


End file.
